Kevin heronJones is the first writer-in-residence for the city of Brampton. An author, poet, journalist, editor, actor, and lecturer, he is perhaps best known for his spoken word performances, as founder of the PoeticSoul poetry series, the Duel of the Iron Mic poetry series in collaboration with Unblind, the Iron Mic Slam at Ryerson [now Toronto Metropolitan University], the 1 Ness poetry series in collaboration with Al St. Louis, and When Words are Spoken. Kevin designed PoeticSoul as an organization dedicated to promoting the poetic arts scene, creating PoeticSoul Online Literary Journal in 2004 as the first online publication focused on the spoken word community in Canada. He also joined energies with AIM, the African Image Makers, an organization that has created scholarships for African students, organized fundraisers, and released a clothing line “with thought provoking designs and poetry that reflect the beauty of the Black Caribbean and African Community.” He writes “in the tradition of the ancient African griots who used stories and poetry to educate as well as entertain.”
Born in Toronto, raised in Muskoka; a resident of Elora, he is the author of several published and self-published books of poetry, historical research into the Guelph mafia, anti-slavery activism on the Grand River River; and has a book of monologues Echoes in the Timbers published in folio by the Elora Poetry Centre. Vocamus Press published his first chapbook, Rhythmic with Lyric, and recently produced his second, Skidding with the Quarrymen, which can be purchased through the Books for Sale link of the Elora Poetry Centre website. Jerry is also a playwright, former journalist, stone worker, and dancer.
Zane, a poet and translator living in Guelph, was born and raised in the East Kootenays, British Columbia, and earned his Ph.D. from New York University, with a focus on transnational literary circulation in North America. He read his book Country Music, in which he “stakes his claim to a poetry of common life,” in its entirely at the Elora Poetry Centre & Gallery in August 2025.
Zane visited the Elora Poetry Centre on Sunday afternoon, August 10, to read from Country Music, his new book. Here’s a brief blurb from the publisher: “Zane Koss grew up listening to stories. Often these were told late at night around kitchen tables or campfires against the backdrop of rural British Columbia. The stories themselves, punctuated by the humour and violence of life in the mountains, offer a means of critiquing ‘extractiveness’–both the violence of settler-colonial capitalism and the systems of class privilege that devalue rural, working-class experience. Mining these materials for a rural poetics–a country music–Koss begins to understand both his working-class upbringing and academic surroundings.” — Invisible Publishing
Zane, a poet and translator living in Guelph, was born and raised in the East Kootenays, BC, and earned a doctorate at New York University. His delivery masterfully captured the vernacular speech of his boyhood in rural interior BC as he read the text of Country Music in its entirely, followed by a lively Q & A.
Following Zane’s performance, members of the audience were treated to Alina Hartley’s piano playing as they mingled prior to sharing a simple buffet. Alina, who hales from Georgetown, grew up studying under the Royal Conservatory program and successfully completed her Level 9 exams in performance, history, and theory. She will be completing her Bachelor of Music at Carleton University in April 2026.
The Elora Poetry Centre & Gallery once again participated in the annual global initiative 100 Thousand Poets for Change, which takes place in hundreds of international locales at the end of each September. We have been part of this worldwide celebration of poetry’s power to effect change since its co-founding in 2011 by the late Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion. As with last year’s event, we were also part of Centre Wellington Township’s Culture Days, with this year’s theme of “celebrating diversity and artistic expression in Centre Wellington” being reflected in our program featuring Kevin heronJones and Jerry Prager.
Kevin heronJones, who recently played Henry “Box” Brown in the Centre Wellington Black Committee’s production of BHM Awakened Voices Narratives at Melville United Church in Fergus, is the first writer-in-residence for the city of Brampton. An author, poet, journalist, editor, actor, and lecturer, Kevin is perhaps best known for his spoken word performances, as founder of the PoeticSoul poetry series, the Duel of the Iron Mic poetry series in collaboration with Unblind, the Iron Mic Slam at Ryerson [now Toronto Metropolitan University], the 1 Ness poetry series in collaboration with Al St. Louis, and When Words are Spoken. An exemplary Poet for Change, Kevin designed PoeticSoul as an organization dedicated to promoting the poetic arts scene, creating PoeticSoul Online Literary Journal in 2004 as the first online publication focused on the spoken word community in Canada. He also joined energies with AIM, the African Image Makers, an organization that has created scholarships for African students, organized fundraisers, and released a clothing line “with thought provoking designs and poetry that reflect the beauty of the Black Caribbean and African Community.” He writes “in the tradition of the ancient African griots who used stories and poetry to educate as well as entertain,” and his performance on Sept. 28 included both storytelling and poetry.
Jerry Prager really needs no introduction at the Elora Poetry Centre & Gallery, having performed his poetry here a number of times, premiered a table reading of Covenant Chains: A New Folk Opera (with music by Peter Skoggard), and created “The Composition of Anti-slavery” from wood, salvaged from the Chalmers Presbyterian Church in Elora, the remarkable sculpture that is now mounted behind Beaver House. Having recently returned to Elora, Jerry enhances our arts community with his varied and colourful experiences as a writer, poet, playwright, sculptor, dancer, and heritage stone worker. He has published three books on the history of the Underground Railroad in Wellington County and reprised a long poem related to this subject that has become a favourite at the Elora Poetry Centre, titled “Echoes in the Timbers.” This time Jerry read this remarkable poem at dusk in a Son et Lumière setting in which the acclaimed Elora-based photographer Wayne Simpson created a backdrop by providing lighting from within Beaver House, the Elora Poetry Centre’s 1832 log house that was part of the Canadian Underground Railroad in its original locale south of Aberfoyle.
This event was in conjunction with the national Culture Days initiative, with funding from Centre Wellington Township. Additional funding of Jerry Prager’s reading was from the League of Canadian Poets and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Canadian-Greek soprano and librettist Georgia Perdikoulias is an artist with a passion for storytelling through the creation and performance of new works. A graduate of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, Georgia has found equal joy and passion in performing and debuting operatic and art song repertoire. Her performances at Bard included the premiering of art songs, one of which was Peter’s “Refuge” (composed by Kostas Rekleitis), and a new opera, My Wife is a Ghost. Georgia combines her love of writing and the written word with her passion for performing, employing a text-centric approach to new and canonical works alike. Georgia is also a published poet, having co-authored the poetry collection Mythopoesis (2022). In addition to her classical music training, Georgia is a traditional Greek folk singer and dancer with a love for performing and sharing her culture.
A native of Toronto, Peter holds a Master’s degree in Translation from the Université de Montreal. After a twenty-year detour as a psychotherapist in Boston, he has returned to one of his first loves: literary translation. He is co-host, with Vassiliki, of the podcast series Borders Unbound: Hellenic Poetry of the Diaspora and Beyond, as well as being an occasional voice-over artist, poet, and aficionado of French and Greek poetry set to music.
Born in Montreal, Max Layton now lives in Cheltenham, Ontario. He is the singer-songwriter son of Irving Layton and Betty Sutherland. He has worked at jobs ranging from a BC lumber camp to laying track in Saskatchewan, picking tobacco to apprentice car mechanic. Later, he owned a bookstore, managed a subsidiary of McClelland & Steward and ran his own publishing house. He earned an MA in English Literature from the University of Toronto and worked as a high school English teacher until retirement. He is also a published novelist and short story writer. Max went legally blind more than a decade ago; it was during that difficult period that he recorded his first CD, Heartbeat Of Time. However, his eyesight was recently restored thanks to modern science. Max has authored four collections of poetry.
“It is with deep sadness that we inform you of the passing of a remarkable poet within the Armenian literary community on January 9, 2024. Arpine Konyalian Grenier, a poet and scholar, hailed from Beirut, Lebanon, where she was born and raised. Throughout her academic and corporate endeavors, she dedicated herself to diverse fields such as cardiovascular research, human resources development, regulatory finance, and the arts. Her literary works transcended boundaries, resonating on a global and cosmic scale, emphasizing the human experience over ethnic distinctions. Her writing graced numerous esteemed publications, often earning accolades or finalist nominations. Additionally, she engaged in multidisciplinary collaborations, served as a guest editor, and presented at conferences. Most importantly, she authored five poetry collections: St. Gregory’s Daughter (1992), Whores from Samarkand (1993), Part, Part Euphrates (2007), The Confession Stand: Exaptation at the Margins (2011), and The Silent G (2019).” –International Armenian Literary Alliance
Arpine was one of the first poets to read at the Elora Poetry Centre, shortly after its founding in 2011. She gave a memorable performance. RIP
Carl Skoggard was trained as a musicologist and for many years served as an editor for the music bibliography Repértoire International de la Littérature Musicale (RILM), New York, where he was responsible for German materials. More recently, he was also the staff writer for Nest: A Quarterly of Interiors, an award-winning magazine created by his partner Joseph Holtzman. Over the last decade Skoggard has prepared translations with extensive commentary for the three major autobiographically-oriented writings of the German-Jewish philosopher and cultural theorist Walter Benjamin. His bilingual edition of Benjamin’s Sonnets has made this little-known but important body of poetry available to readers of English for the first time.
The Elora Poetry Centre & Gallery 